Random musings on history, politics, and more

Archive for April 1st, 2009

A coworker of my partner was kind enough to give them a free bottle of the new Sierra Mist Ruby Splash flavor, in its diet incarnation. Pepsi seems to have a lot of hopes riding on the success of both Sierra Mist’s recent rebranding, and the new flavor… hopes I suspect might be unfounded.

As my partner puts it, “You know that taste in your mouth after you’ve just thrown up? Like, on an empty stomach, where you’re just coughing up stomach juices, and the like? It tastes exactly like that, only with a strange chemical aftertaste. Diet sick, basically.”

You’ll forgive me if I don’t try it, I hope; I prefer my vomitus without any aspartame aftertaste, thanks.

It’s hard to please everyone, and nowhere is that axiom more true than in law enforcement. Arrest bad people before their criminal plans come to fruition, and you’re a fascist oppressor with a vendetta, violating their basic human rights. Wait until after they commit their special crime, and everyone else wants to know why you didn’t act sooner. What’s a municipality to do?

Well, you can try taking preventative action to – hopefully – deter specific incidents, like here in St Paul, where the authorities want to prevent (gang) violence at the Cinco de Mayo festival by barring entrance to leaders of the local Sur 13 gang. Problem is, by doing this kind of thing you run the risk of upsetting the bleeding hearts of the world, and a lot of the time you’re probably doing nothing more than moving or postponing the inevitable. (Will there still be antagonism between Sur 13 and 18th St? Of course. But it hopefully won’t happen during the supposedly family-friendly festivities, which I guess is what’s important.)